Things I think about
by Devicon
Summary: Poems, ideas and experiences.  Please leave reviews. Much appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

Bad Day

I look at my television in annoyance as yet another days' worth of news is nothing but death and human stupidity. Is there anything else going on in the world? Or have we all just lost our minds? I usually judge the type of day it's been from the news. I find that's the best way to tell, because I believe it's only a good day when something good around the world happens to someone. Hard to tell these days though, with people hitting other people with cars, and other people shooting someone over something so little as junk items.  
>When did society become so enthralled by the Macabre? When did the birth of a child become irrelevant to the lives lost? It's like the human race has given up hope for the future and we all expect some kind of immanent doom to befall us. But even then why shouldn't we be happy for new life? It's not that I believe no one cares for new life, but it doesn't have the same kind of impact on people as it used to back in the day. It used to be a joyous occasion when someone was born and everyone near and far could tell when it had happened. It saddens me to know people don't care as much these days.<br>All I see these days is sorrow, anger and vengeful looks on the television… the radio isn't much better. It's focusing on car accidents somewhere on the highway, or the police chase that killed a family of 3. Why can't they instead talk about the chase that didn't end in tragedy?  
>Doesn't anyone see what their actions and feelings are doing to the coming generations? If all we do now is focus on the bad then all our future generations are going to focus on is the negative. I can guarantee that if we look at the current generation and asked them what was going on in the world these days all they'd be able to talk about is the "Bad Economy" or "The War in Iraq", or even the ever popular "Obama Policy". Sure it's good that the current generation is aware of these things, but when that's all that's ground into the minds of the young and when asked to remember something positive about a negative situation… it will only ensure the endurance of the trial of these hard times.<br>It wasn't long ago I was talking with one of my friends, who is younger then I by a fair margin, about a fire that had occurred not too long ago up in the mountains it was hard to hear everything he had to say on the matter. I recalled how a group of firemen had gotten caught in the fire and had to fight their way back to the trucks. Out of like seven men five had gotten back to the trucks and the other two got split from the others and were killed in the fire, but I only knew that a fair number had made it back to the trucks and helped end the fire. But my friend was able to tell me the names of the two men who had died, and how they had died in horrific grimness.  
>It was another bad day.<br>9/11… a bad day. Hurricane Katrina… another bad day. It's been a while since there's been a good day in the world. For one moment in your life, shut out the sounds of the radio and visions of the television and take a deep breath. When you shut your eyes what do you see after of a day of living in the world? All I see is the sad faces of the men carrying a coffin of a deceased friend or relative… the blank look in their eyes and the tears on their faces. The color of the tombstone recently placed, yet untouched by the elements. And even if I manage to suppress the images, I cannot suppress the great sadness that always comes with the sight. Every day my heart breaks a little more at the cruelty of life and my own weakness to express how I feel about it.  
>How can we all live in a world of "Bad Days" and not break from the stress? If I could do one thing in this world it would be to give this world one good day. One is all it would need for a sense of peace and hope to retake the world that has allowed itself to be consumed by guilt and doubt. As one of my favorite bands say: "When you get that feelin', when you start believing that it's a miracle, it's hysteria." I don't think all hysteria is bad, I'm sure someone could feel happiness to the point of near hysteria. I myself sometimes when I'm alone something might pop into my head that brings me to the brink of tears each time. Something that fills me with hope and a light I cannot explain.<br>Don't you know what I'm talking about? If you heard something good about the world you'd smile, but then if you kept hearing good things smiling would turn to a bright mood, the sunlight would feel warmer, the world would seem less harsh, bad traffic would feel like nothing, and it would lead to making you think positively. After all this, once hope and the light have made a home in your heart how could you keep it in? Sometimes when there's no way to explain the way you feel all there is are tears. Not all tears are from sorrow and despair are bad, remember everything negative that has ever been done has been taken to mock the good.  
>But just think, seeing someone with hope and light in their heart, think of looking into their eyes and feeling what they feel just from the single look. How long has it been since the last time the world cowed before the hope of the world? How long has it been since a smile defeated the sorrow evil has wrought? When was the last time a single handshake ended the hate that has lasted for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years?<br>"Separated we move on, united we fall." Def Leppard also said in one of their songs. And it is totally true, because we can move on alone, but when one of us fails and falls so will the rest of us follow. Which brings to mind another quote: "When a good man suffers, the whole world suffers with him." How long has it been since the good man didn't suffer? The world suffers not just because of one man, but it suffers because all the world's good men suffer on some degree from the pain and suffering of the world.  
>I know there's no quick-fix to ease the suffering of the good men, just like there's no way to teach someone of the hope and light. The only thing we can do is grasp at the thoughts that give us hope in any situation, and try to make it all a reality. It all starts by accepting happiness and letting go of the things that pain us, no matter how horrid they are. And not everything happens overnight, but the longer you try the easier it becomes and the more you do it. The first step to being able to forgive others is learning to forgive yourself. It's all a journey, only you can take the first step. And like a good man once told me: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But once you take the first step you're half way there." To me that means Half the effort of getting hope and light back in your life is putting the effort into just trying.<br>But I recently have come to believe in a quote I hope one day will be recognized: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But once you take the first step you're half way there. But it's a road more easily traveled with company." I will try to make this effort of remembering the light and hope, but I will not always succeed. I just have to remember that as long as I let others join me on this journey they can help me up when I stumble, and we can cheer each other on when the road seems endless and bleak.  
>To those who will try also, I will not lie to you: The road you start on will seem endless and empty, with a cloud that always seems to rain on you as you try to leave it behind… but just remember the more people you let in one your life the more you will come to see that the more people you have with you will help the sun come out in your life. The road will no longer feel endless, just constantly growing for you and those close to you. It will seem also to become more alive and accepting, allowing you more distance in a day then it started letting you. This road is endless for those who want it to be, and has stopping points for those who have lost their footing and need help.<br>"The darkest period doesn't come at night." Just before the clouds break it will be it's hardest, where the darkness will fight to drag you down. But that's why it's a road more easily traveled with company, because with the combined hope of you and those close to you the darkness will cow before the might of your resolve. And the world will bow before those who have defeated despair and sorrow, and the light will shine in their eyes with newfound life. It will glow in their eyes as brightly as the sun, and all around them will feel it.  
>And trust in this one thing: the day someone can feel true hope and light from either within themselves or from someone they are close to…<p>

That is a good day.


	2. Chapter 2

Condemn me for condemning you  
>You didn't deserve it when I said I hated you<br>You didn't need to hear the worries in my head  
>I couldn't see past myself to look at you<br>Nights I stay awake wondering what could have been  
>Wondering what we might have been had I not lost it<br>If only I could have fought it off for just a while longer  
>You had seen the best in me even when I was at my worst<br>I can still remember what it was like making you smile  
>Hearing your voice when you'd laugh<br>The warmth of your embrace  
>The shine in your eyes<br>Memories that I would rip from my mind if I could  
>They comfort me as they erode my sanity<br>Building me back up from the ashes while breaking me down  
>The joyous pain of blissful rejection<br>If I could  
>If I would<br>I know that I should  
>Sometimes I wish I couldn't<br>It's not that I wouldn't  
>It's not that I couldn't<br>No one tells me I shouldn't  
>But knowing how I did it how can I<br>I can't because of what I've done  
>I won't because it wouldn't be fair<br>I shouldn't because of the look I saw in your eyes  
>And no one says I shouldn't because they don't know I did it<br>They don't know the hole I ripped inside you  
>The wound I made with my words<br>The pain I flared by being angry and afraid  
>The things I said to you should never be spoken<br>If I could I would rip out my aching heart and use it to repair yours  
>If I could I would tear my memories asunder if it meant you could forget about me<br>If I could… I would


	3. Chapter 3

Does anyone remember what it was like to really feel the true weight of the world? Even if it was only once, don't you remember waking up one morning almost brought to tears by the pains of the world and wishing you could do something about it? For me, it's but a fleeting glance at something I didn't truly understand, and to be quite honest it scared me when I did. It's heart-wrenching to think about… and it still pains me. I have all my needs like any other person does, I have all my wants in order like I should, but I always seem to come back to the same stopping point. Hate. Anger. War. Hunger. Murder. Theft. Dishonesty.  
>What happened to Honor, Truth, Peace, Sharing, and the Love of your fellow man? I've seen it, what the anger and hate can do. I've seen small children who should not feel such things already hate someone of a different ethnicity. I know hate is not bred into us, it's taught. Hate does not spread like a wildfire because it's "Truth", because truth does not spread so fast. It's easier to hate then to love or else love wouldn't be love. From personal experience I know it's not always easy to love your parents, or siblings, or friends, or your Significant Other. It's easy to fall away from them and to let anger fester in your heart and let it rot you away from the inside till you can't feel anything else.<br>I too am guilty of Hate. Or at least at one point I used to hate in such a way I took joy in the heartache of others. I never had friends, I had people I could use. I never had family, I had people I was forced to endure. Thankfully I learned early on that I wasn't just hurting them the way I thought I was, I was hurting them because they cared and I didn't understand what it was to truly care. And they pitied me for it. But here's how hard it is to stay angry, or in hate. The scars of long-lasting hate and anger do not vanish, but they do get better. But I digress. It's hard to stay angry and in hate because the Heart wants to love, the heart wants to feel joy.  
>I was talking with a friend of mine, and she was having a bad day. A bad life is more like it. And when I heard what was going on in her life, I felt the first tug on my heart. I ignored it of course, but then as time went on she and I talked more and the more I was letting go a little at a time. It wasn't before long I realized she was precious to me, a small glimmer of light in the darkness I dwelled in. I began to find it hard to hardly ever be mad at her, and when I was it was never for long. When I began to take noticed of my feelings for her, I did everything in my power to be by her as much as I could. She was dating my best friend, (which caused me some grief but I lived with it) and one day she comes to me crying telling me she and he just broke up. And I knew she was in love with him, and usually at about this time with any one of my other female friends I would have tried to find some place to slip in, and I knew if I played my cards right I could date them.<br>But that never came to my mind when I saw her crying. Her tear-streaked face, her glistening eyes, the pain she had, I felt it too. She sat on the bleachers in the Gym, and everyone in there would look at her for only half a second and then disregard her. I wondered how they couldn't feel it, how was it they cared so little? They were a product of the world, something cold. So I walked up and sat on the bleachers and asked her what was wrong… and it took her a while to answer, but I didn't push her. Eventually she spoke to me, told me how she felt, and I did my best to comfort her. I got her to laugh through her tears, and to this day that sight has changed me. Someone who was immersed in sadness could smile and laugh, could feel for a moment a glimmer of hope and happiness.  
>It was in that moment, I believe, that I fundamentally changed. The structure my life, my heart, and my wants and needs were altered and sent on a crash-course for a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wanted to make everyone feel better, I wanted to help others, I wanted there to be smiles through sadness and defeat, I wanted to hear the sound of laughter even in the hail of anger and consuming depression. I believe it was in that moment that I fell in love with her, but I wouldn't tell her for years to come. You know when something changes in you, because when you shut your eyes you can always see what it was that changed you.<br>When I shut my eyes I see her, I can hear her as if she was still laughing. I don't think she's even aware of what made me change, I don't think she knows she's the reason I am the way I am today. As one song goes: "I found a reason for me to show, a side of me you didn't know. A reason to start over new, and that reason is you." I never told her what she meant to me, even later on I just told her I was in love with her. So all she knows is the feelings I have, but she has no idea of how deep they are.  
>But I digress. That's how easy it is to forget how to hate and be angry, and for love and compassion to take it's place. All it takes is a single moment to shake the shackles both have on your heart, not break but just shake, and once they are shaken it's so easy to just let go. For some, like myself, it is a miracle that there was someone born to show us back to the path we can take and live life with a smile.<br>Theft and Dishonesty, they go hand in hand. When you are dishonest, you steal peace of mind and truth from the person you are lying to. I am guilty of these as well. I used to be one of the most dishonest people you could ever know, lying at any given point just because I could. I was good at it too, which only made matters worse. I stole things too, usually from the people I was dishonest to. I got away with it for years, and if anyone ever caught on I just cut them out of my life. I was proud of it in my younger years for being able to do both and get away with it so easily, but now when I look back on it there is a scar in my memories from it.  
>I used to think everyone was being dishonest to me and at one point was stealing things from me, and whether or not that's true is besides the point. The point is the guilty are ever suspicious. People can't help you get over stealing or lying, only 2 things in the world can: Time and Yourself. You have to be motivated to stop lying and stealing, and some would think that it's easy, well the simple truth is Nothing worth doing is easy. It's not that people caught me, or that people got suspicious of my actions, it's that one day I was reflecting back on my past actions to see where I was going wrong. Needless to say it didn't take me long to ask myself a similar question: "When did I do right?" I realized a lot of the people I knew didn't really know me at all, they knew the lies I told.<br>Not only that, they didn't know of my thievery which only made matters worse. It wasn't an overnight change, and it's not that I no longer need to work on it, because when changing a part of yourself. Not a habit, habits are easy to change in the face of changing something that is part of who you are. No, I need to pay attention every day so I don't fall back into these actions. I can't afford one time of saying to myself: "Just this once, I've been good about it for a while. I can do it just this once and never do it again." Alcoholics tell themselves that every time they drink. And like an alcoholic if I let myself do it "One last time" I may never quit.  
>It all started with me telling people I had been dishonest, and what I had been dishonest about. I lost a lot of friends and the respect of even more. But I felt I could live with telling people I was dishonest, and the consequences therein… but a truly humiliating experience is letting people know you stole from them. Letting them know you stole from them, letting them know how much, and what it was you took. The worst part is the yelling and anger that you must weather in reaction, knowing the grief you gave them for your actions. You might get punched, slapped, pushed and shoved, and yelled at… but nothing they can say can come close to the grief you already feel. The names you've called yourself, the things you want them to do.<br>Because when I look back on that, being hit doesn't feel like enough. The so-called "Punishments" they give you never feel like enough. How could they? You've betrayed them in the most covert ways… Stealing of any kind makes them rethink what they can trust you around, and dishonesty makes them question the what they really know about you. You make them doubt, that's what hurts the most. You may lose many friends by telling them, but it's better to lose friends and make new ones then to lose yourself. It's never easy to tell the truth to those you've lied to, or tell them you've stolen from them, because if it was it wouldn't be called "Owning up to it."  
>Now the worst of the lot, War, hunger and murder. These three things are an unfortunate fact of our daily life here in the 21st century. I can't say why people feel the need to murder, or the lust to take someone's life, or that I even understand it. I believe there are 3 different kinds of men: Good, Insane, and Evil. No good man truly understands the need to kill, the need to deprive someone of their life. Insane men don't understand why they do it, they are motivated by something that either scares them or angers them, but the actual "Want" or "Need" to take someone's life isn't natural. There is something physically or mentally wrong with them, so you cannot hate them. Or you shouldn't.<br>The third kind of man is Evil and they want to take lives just because they like it. Some men just want to watch the world burn, because it's fun. They don't delude themselves with thoughts of a "Righteous Cause" or "I'm sick" or even "There's something wrong with me." Evil men can at first be hard to discern from the Insane or Sick, because where they don't lie to themselves they have no qualms about lying to others to try to get away with it. But the evil men eventually show their true colors through their actions… even by how they hold themselves or look at you.  
>Evil men are predators hunting the game, and eventually those predator instincts will give them away. You must be wary of these men, as they are not to be rehabilitated… there is no way to help those who believe there's nothing to help. When the are caught in a situation that acts like a cage… jail, surrounded, or when they are caught… even behind closed doors. They have no friends or love for anything besides killing, mercy is not in their vocabulary. The only thing you can do in a situation like this is to fight until you either win and can get away or subdue him… or you lose. Fight like your life depends on it, because in a case of good or evil, it's always a life or death situation. We like to believe even evil men are insane, because it's easier to believe no one is truly capable of the horrendous acts then to believe some men just like the sight of the light leaving your eyes.<br>When facing evil… there is no such thing as going too far to defend yourself. They don't have a good man's sense of self-holding, where you will hold yourself back to avoid death. Evil has 3 goals:  
>1. Death, where they want to kill you.<br>2. Corrupt, they want you to lose yourself in the fight and become like them. They don't care if they live or die in most situations, they try to push anyone to the limit… and if they can, over it.  
>3. Fear, where killing is usually not the intended goal of someone who is evil it is a close second. Evil men revel in the fear and terror of their victims before they pass away. It's why they continue to look for more victims, because they "Break" their earlier victims or the accidentally kill them. If their victims never gave in, and never died, they could keep torturing the same person until they tired of the sounds they make.<p>

But that concludes what I think of Evil men for now… I may speak of it on a later date, I'm just not too sure how to go on.  
>But as for war… it's inevitable. Different countries equals different goals, different goals equals disagreements, disagreements equals arguments, and arguments inevitably leads toward violence. Now not every time is there war is it cause by something in there… it's just a brief rundown of why I think war happens. But as I believe: "War is a business… and when there's war the business booms. But when business slows down, someone somewhere will fuel another one just for the love of war and money. And money gives power. So therefore I believe: War = Power. And everyone loves power."<p> 


End file.
